the times | Thursday April 28 2022 63
Sport
Tyson Fury said last night that “no
amount of material assets or money”
would tempt him to emerge from the
retirement he announced in the
aftermath of his knockout victory over
Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium
on Saturday.
Fury, 33, retained his WBC
heavyweight title after sending Whyte
to the canvas with a brutal uppercut in
the sixth round, extending his
unbeaten run to 33 fights. Many in
boxing had questioned whether Fury
would stick to his plan to retire, with
Ricky Hatton, the former world
champion at welterweight and light
welterweight, saying he did not think
that Fury would retire until he had
“I’m a very simple man, I drive an ‘07
VW Passat, I don’t need tons of money,”
he said. “I’ve been away for the last ten
years on the road, travelling for boxing.
When do I get time to be a father, a
husband, a brother, a son? I need this
personal time. I don’t have anythingLast week Raducanu told Beltz, the
45-year-old German, that she did not
wish to continue their partnership. She
revealed that this was something that
had been brewing in her mind for
several weeks, and acknowledged that
her heavily influential father, Ian, had
played a part.
“At the end of the day I make the
decision,” Raducanu said. “But as a 19-
year-old I’m always going to ask my
parents, just like my school friends
might ask their parents which
university they should go to.”
Those who work with Raducanu in
the future should not expect much job
security. She and her father are
renowned for consulting different
voices, rather than trusting the stan-
dard one-coach set-up.
Her tennis IQ was also evident from
an early age.“I always love learning andFury: No amount of money could make me return
fought both Anthony Joshua and
Oleksandr Usyk.
But in an interview on Piers Morgan
Uncensored on Talk TV last night, Fury
reiterated his determination to hang up
his gloves. “No amount of material as-
sets or money will make me come back
out of retirement,” he said. “I’m happy,
I’m healthy, I’ve still got my brains, I’ve
got a beautiful wife, I’ve got six kids, I’ve
got plenty of money, success, fame,
glory. Boxing is a very dangerous sport,
you can be taken out with one punch, it
only takes one unlucky blow and you
may not get up off that canvas. I’m quit-
ting while I’m ahead. I’m undefeated,
the second man in history to retire
undefeated heavyweight champion.”
Fury insisted that he had no desire to
pursue the riches that fights with
Joshua or Usyk would bring.more to give. I’ve been a professional
for 14 years.
“I always said that I wanted to walk
away on top of the sport and do it on my
terms. I don’t want to be that person
that says, ‘I should have retired two
years ago.’ I wanted to go out with a
bang, nearly 100,000 at Wembley, with
a knockout performance. They will not
forget the Gypsy King in a hurry.”
Fury was not asked about his links to
Daniel Kinahan, the Irish crime boss.
Bob Arum, Fury’s promoter, recently
said that he paid Kinahan “at least a
million” in consultancy fees for four Fu-
ry fights: the bouts with Tom Schwarz
and Otto Wallin, and two fights against
Deontay Wilder. That prompted BT
Sport, which aired those fights, to con-
duct a review “to ensure we only deal
with legitimate businesses in boxing”.Boxing
John Westerby
I love to hear new ideas,” Raducanu
said. “Whether I use all of them or not,
that’s my own decision or my own call,
but I just love to get a taste for all the
different ideas that are out there, and
different models.
“When I was training alone growing
up, I had to learn to be my own coach.
Something that I am pretty good at is
understanding the game, studying it.
That is one of my strengths. Of course
a coach’s experience is very valuable at
certain times, but the majority of the
time I feel that I already know the
answer to the question I am asking.”
Tomorrow Raducanu plays Tereza
Martincova, the world No 49 from the
Czech Republic, who was the opponent
in her first professional match on clay
two weeks ago. Raducanu won 7-5, 7-5
on the opening day of a Billie Jean King
Cup qualifier in Prague.Emma Raducanu has insisted that she
is prepared to play at Wimbledon
without a full-time coach. Speaking at
length for the first time since her
sudden split with Torben Beltz this
week, the US Open champion said that
she is in no rush to appoint a replace-
ment in advance of the pressure-filled
British grass-court season.
Raducanu, who is preparing for the
start of her Madrid Open campaign
tomorrow, admitted that the decision
to end her arrangement with Beltz after
only five months together was a “tough
one”. This was the third time in ten
months that she had parted ways with a
coach — Nigel Sears and Andrew Rich-
ardson were let go after Wimbledon
and the US Open respectively.
Raducanu failed to divulge any
details about a replacement for Beltz. It
is understood that the well-respected
Italian Riccardo Piatti is being consid-
ered by Raducanu to lead a team of
various people, but her comments
yesterday suggest that the pair are not
close to an agreement. It raises the pos-
sibility that she could enter the most
crucial period of her career without a
trusted permanent mentor by her side.
Asked if this would bother her
at Wimbledon, Raducanu
replied: “To be honest, no. I
am very comfortable with
how I am training and I
feel like the work I have
been doing has been
extremely specific in the
last weeks. I feel like I
don’t really need a con-
ventional ‘Emma Raduca-
nu’s coach’. I feel like, grow-
ing up, I have always been very
responsive to the situation and it
has not always been straightforward. I
am not necessarily stressing or
panicking to find a new coach.”
It will certainly raise eyebrows within
the sport that Raducanu is prepared to,
in a sense, go it alone in the pressure
cooker that is Wimbledon. She does
have the option of calling upon helpers
from the LTA, with the head of women’s
tennis, Iain Bates, accompanying her in
Madrid this week, but it is a bold step for
a 19-year-old to brush off the benefits of
having a full-time coach.
Instead Raducanu seems more
occupied with ensuring that she has
adequate practice partners after being
taken aback by the speed of the ball
coming at her during last
week’s Porsche Grand
Prix quarter-final defeat by
the world No 1, Iga Swiatek.
“I’m very comfortable with what
I’m doing right now,” Raducanu said. “I
think that in the interim period with the
LTA supporting me, they’ve been
around my game for a very long time
because they basically governed my
development from a young age.
“It’s become more apparent to me
that playing these tour matches at a
high level, just the level and the quality
of the balls that are coming back to me,
I feel that’s something that I need to
train with day in, day out. I’m just going
to focus a lot more on the sparring
quality and there are some technical
elements of my game that I need to just
get back to the basics and kind of
develop from the bottom.”Raducanu will be supported by the LTA coach Bates when she begins her Madrid Open campaign tomorrowI could play at Wimbledon without
a permanent coach, says Raducanu
Tennis
Stuart Fraser
Tennis Correspondent, Madrid
Madrid
Open
Emma Raducanu
v Tereza Martincova
Tomorrow, time tbc
TV: Amazon PrimeQUALITY SPORT IMAGES/GETTY IMAGESEFL demands
payment ratio
like top flight
Football
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports ReporterThe EFL is prepared to accept merit-
based financial distribution from the
Premier League if it mirrors the sliding
scale in England’s top flight.
The Premier League wants the
money it gives to lower-division clubs
to be based on where they finish in the
league table — and for enhanced cost
controls to prevent spendthrift chair-
men from wasting the income — before
it agrees to increase its payments.
The EFL would back the idea if it
meant the club finishing top of the Sky
Bet Championship receive about 1.7
times the amount of the club finishing
bottom — a similar ratio to the Premier
League. One proposal it has rejected is
for the top club to receive many times
the amount as the club at the bottom.
The plan would have to be agreed by
the EFL clubs, but league chiefs would
also support new cost controls.
The merit-based payment idea has
backing within the EFL and the
Premier League as it should reduce the
“cliff edge” between the divisions and
lead to a cut in the controversial
parachute payments made to clubs
relegated from the top flight.
The Premier League has said it will
give away £1.6 billion to the rest of the
football pyramid over the next three
years, about 16 per cent of its revenues.
The government has told the Premier
League that it must agree a deal or face
legislation that will force one through.Walker likely
to return for
second leg
Paul HirstManchester City are hopeful that Kyle
Walker will be available for the second
leg of their Champions League semi-
final against Real Madrid on Wednes-
day. Walker, 31, has been unavailable for
the past four matches because of an
ankle injury that he suffered in the
second leg of City’s quarter-final
against Atletico Madrid. The right back
was left out of the squad for the 4-3 win
over Real on Tuesday, but did take part
in training the day before the game.
The England international would
have been considered for a place on the
bench at the Etihad Stadium had he not
felt soreness in his ankle on Monday.
Provided that there are no significant
setbacks, City are hopeful of being able
to call on Walker for the match in the
Spanish capital, which would be a
welcome boost for Pep Guardiola.
The Catalan had to deploy a half-fit
John Stones at right back in the first leg
because of the absence of Walker and
João Cancelo, who was serving a one-
match suspension after picking up
three yellow cards in the competition.
Cancelo will therefore be available
for the second leg. It means that, should
Walker be given the all-clear, Guardiola
will have both his first-choice full backs
available for the match.
Stones put in a solid performance out
of position against Real but was injured
and replaced by the 36-year-old mid-
fielder Fernandinho in the 37th minute.
The Brazil international set up Phil
Foden for City’s third with a pinpoint
delivery but he struggled against Viní-
cius Júnior, the Real winger.Fury chatting to Morgan on TalkTV